Apparently it is beyond you to distinguish between the government and the people running it.
The fact (and it is indeed a fact) that the sanctions were not against the country and/or the populace doesn't mean a damned thing to you. You are now literally hallucinating a fictional reality in order to avoid the truth of the matter, which is that your beloved socialism always ends up with the socialists in charge looting the populace. FFS, Chavez's daughter is now far and away the wealthiest person in the country.
Obama put the sanctions into place to try to prevent specific individuals from taking their loot and fleeing to America while avoiding broader sanctions against the country which would harm the populace.
This just yet another entirely predictable failure of socialism, and face it: you were wrong again. There were no sanctions against Venezuela. Long paragraphs of speculations won't change that.

I thought everything was awesome again? We should blame the entire group for "being financially irresponsible" during the Great Recession that STILL has not ended, while simultaneously saying that it has.

The whole point of the article is to say that "saving money is hard".
For 40% of Americans, saving money is impossible because the cost of everything continues to go up and low wages do not. Next, look at where the blame is pointed. A lot of people will blame people like Angela for not saving "enough" and try to say she is fully responsible for her own predicament. Not you or me, but there are a LOT of people out there who will blame victims of circumstance. Angela's predicament, even if she did save, is caused by drug companies charging $40,000 for a single drug, which that same drug in Canada costs $40 bucks and NONE of that money went to research. Link to that article here.
We should prepare as best as we can, but there are limits to how much we can prepare. Insurance is supposed to help for situations like this, but look at the cost of both insurance and health care. You pay insurance but insurance has a bad habit of trying to not pay ANY bills at all. For Angela's situation, how much ability would her husband have to try to fight insurance companies in court after a stroke? The way insurance companies operate is predatory on those who are not able to defend themselves. If Angela's husband had not been married to Angela, he would be up shit creek without a paddle. Medical Care costs are also thru the roof. The cost of education is through the roof. The cost of living in general is through the roof.
Really what is happening is not that the costs are rising, but the value of money is decreasing. The costs increasing are symptomatic of the value of the dollar, and represents exactly why Fiat Currency is a clear and present danger to society. The way that many companies handle the situations is to twist problems to blame victims and get victims to blame themselves in a way that benefits the companies, not individuals. For Angela's situation, again, she would be shown to the world as being responsible for her own problems because "she didn't buy enough insurance", when really its the insurance companies and the cost of health care that profit from Angela's situation. They put her in Checkmate, and no matter what she did or does, her situation falters through no fault of her own. I have a few disagreements with Angela, but overall, I understand that her situation is terrible through no fault of her own. I know for a fact she is the type of person to prepare for herself as best as she can and to the absolute best of her ability. Strokes happen. Her situation should be limited to coping with the situation only from a medical care perspective, but is exacerbated by the financial, time, and stress costs of that medical care to the point where surviving medically could ruin her financially, which leads us right back to square one, the title of this thread.
So lets be clear here. Prepare. How does one "prepare"? Do they spend ALL their money on Health Insurance? Maybe the average person is blamed for "living beyond their means" when a single bedroom apartment now costs (here) $1500 a month and the average pay is $10 an hour? Lets blame the victim again for "not getting an education", an education that costs $50,000 and makes $30,000 a year. Can you say Teacher? I knew you could. Can you say that situation is quite normal? To be expected to be in financial dire straights and crushed by overwhelming debt to afford that education that qualifies a person only for low paying jobs? This is a new class of poverty known as "The Educated Poor". Now, take that average person who is $50,000 in debt, earning $30,000 a year, and trying to pay $1500 for a one bedroom apartment? 30k a year only provides 2500 a month BEFORE taxes, and if rent is $1500, that is well above the recommended 25% of income should be spent on housing. Now lets add in the rest of the bills. $1000 a month for health insurance. That number is also pretty average when insurance is not offered by employers. Ooops, that person...

Trump cancels Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/24/trump-says-singapore-summit-with-north-korea-leader-kim-is-cancelled-.html
President Donald Trump has canceled his historic summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month.
The meeting, which would have marked the first face-to-face encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, was set for June 12.
Mike Calia | Michael_Calia
Published 21 Mins Ago Updated 3 Mins Ago

And charity should come from individuals, not the CIA. But their leader won't allow that. This is exactly why socialism always fails in reality. On paper, it's a great plan. In reality, the psychopaths have all the power.
The allegation that this is a CIA orchestrated failure is as crazy as Firestarter though.

Delayed two hours at IAH last week after operations overfilled an A-319 with fuel for a short haul to MSY, thus exceeding MGLW.
Then, they took away my premium seat and bumped me back to the last row, middle seat, without permission or advance notice.
Now, I get to read this:
WTF, Rickshaw Airlines? :mad:
United Airlines CEO: No Regrets, Cutting Ties with NRA Was Personal

From the very paragraph you provided:
Not the country. Now do you want to go do some homework, or do you need me to tell you who each of those people are? It's a pretty short list. And I am 100% confident that seizing all their assets, raping their wives, shooting their dogs and selling their children wouldn't have made as much as a blip on the Venezuelan economy.

Just another case of it not being done correctly?
Like I said, a socialism-denier.
I feel it important to point out that there weren't even any US sanctions on Venezuela until a couple of days ago. But I'm sure it's all the fault of the USA regardless.